Yogive: Cultured Giving
A social business concept designed to alleviate the problem of nutritious yet affordable food for low-income students across the country. We make a delicious, nutritionally complete yogurt drink because we believe that adequate nutrition should not be limited by income.
The Story
Throughout the winter of 2018, I took a class on Social Entrepreneurship (Economics 77) where I learned about Muhammad Yunus and the idea of a "social business". We learned about some wicked problems that we face both domestically and globally due in large part from poverty. Drawing upon my design and economics background, I teamed up with my classmate Evalyn Li '21 to prototype a business model to address the problem of poor nutrition among low-income Americans.
Throughout the process, we were shocked by the research and the sheer breadth of the problem of adequate nutrition in America. ONE in SIX Americans do not have access to adequate nutrition, and a third of those afflicted are children. The highest proportion of calories consumed by low-income households is sugary drinks. This didn't seem right to us, so we walked through the design process to create Yogive.
A cross-subsidy modelA higher-priced yogurt drink is sold in bulk to corporations in a high output economy such as the San Francisco Bay Area. The Yogive smoothie is a healthy and delicious source of vitamins, minerals, and protein for employees at firms that offer free snacks.
The profits from the higher-priced yogurt drink are used to subsidize the cost of a Yogive yogurt smoothie for local school districts. Yogive not only helps students meet nutrition requirements, but it also reduces the grip of soft drink manufacturers on school districts. Using profits from the higher-paying consumers, Yogive is able to provide a nutritionally complete smoothie at just the cost of an average container of milk.
The profits from the higher-priced yogurt drink are used to subsidize the cost of a Yogive yogurt smoothie for local school districts. Yogive not only helps students meet nutrition requirements, but it also reduces the grip of soft drink manufacturers on school districts. Using profits from the higher-paying consumers, Yogive is able to provide a nutritionally complete smoothie at just the cost of an average container of milk.